TV Weekend | 'Saving Jessica Lynch'; 'Elizabeth Smart Story'

Battle of the Network Docudramas

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: November 7, 2003

ONE is an unworldly blond teenager whose capture and miraculous rescue entranced the nation. The other is an unworldly blond teenager whose capture and miraculous rescue entranced the nation.

It would seem almost impossible to choose between "The Elizabeth Smart Story" on CBS and "Saving Jessica Lynch" on NBC, two made-for-television movies that will be shown at the same time on Sunday night. Leaving aside "none of the above," the correct answer would have to be Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch.

The NBC movie, directed by Peter Markle, is more imaginatively filmed. And its makers did the best they could without access to primary sources to fill in the blanks. Private Lynch withdrew her cooperation from NBC in favor of a $1 million book contract with Alfred A. Knopf for a biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," by Rick Bragg, a former reporter for The New York Times, that is to be published next week. Blocked from relying on Private Lynch or her friends' and relatives' recollections, NBC pieced together its own narrative of the most publicized and disputed incidents of the war. It chose an inoffensive course but managed to eke some drama out of the confusion.

CBS worked closely with the Smarts on "The Elizabeth Smart Story," and the movie hews to the Utah family's version of what happened after Elizabeth, then 14, was abducted at knife point from her bedroom in Salt Lake City on June 5, 2002. Against all odds, she was found alive nine months later, and her horrifying and ultimately uplifting story is now well known. It is a tale that has since been eclipsed by a new mystery: the Smart family's second act, which includes a book, "Bringing Elizabeth Home: A Journey of Faith and Hope" (Doubleday), and a round of smarmy interviews with television divas from Katie Couric to Oprah Winfrey.

The movie pits the Smarts' piety and grit against an arrogant police force and a perfidious press corps; it makes a point of highlighting their dependence on the media to keep Elizabeth (Amber Marshall) in the news and their dismay at television's exploitative sensationalism. But it sheds no light on why these devoted parents and devout Mormons are now so eager to return to the same limelight, and even, as was the case in last week's interview with Ms. Couric, why they are willing to place Elizabeth, now 16, in front of television cameras and a microphone.

The facts surrounding Private Lynch's capture and rescue were much hazier, with so many conflicting reports that despite countless news articles, magazine show segments and television biographies, there is still no complete picture of what really happened during those fateful days in Iraq last spring. (Ms. Lynch has agreed to talk to Diane Sawyer of ABC on Tuesday, Veterans Day, but is reported to remember little about her captivity.)

The film shows a fedayeen interrogator slapping Private Lynch as she lies in her hospital bed, but there is no other suggestion of torture, let alone the possibility that she was sodomized by her captors. That detail, gleaned from her medical records, is revealed in the biography and was first reported in The Daily News yesterday. In the book Private Lynch says she does not remember a sexual assault and also has no memory of being slapped.

Written by John Fasano, the NBC movie skirts details about Private Lynch's captivity and instead focuses on the role of the Iraqi lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, who risked his life to lead American forces to the hospital where the 19-year-old American prisoner of war was being held. As a result, he and his family were granted political asylum in the United States. The movie is, of course, Mr. Rehaief's version of events, based on his memoir, "Because Each Life Is Precious" (HarperCollins), and sweetened for the screen. The real Mr. Rehaief is not quite as buff and handsome as the actor who plays him in the movie, Nicholas Guilak. But his decency has not been challenged.

And by making Mr. Rehaief the story's hero, the filmmakers avoid having to make up details about Private Lynch's ordeal or delivering too jingoistic a paean to American military prowess. Troops in the field are shown to be brave and true, but their bosses back home are not. The Bush administration's efforts to capitalize on the rescue operation are invoked obliquely.

Commander Curry (Michael Rooker), the leader of the Special Operations team, gets an urgent call from headquarters. "There is a great deal of interest in our mission kicking off as soon as possible," he tells an intelligence officer. "We're going to be watched on this one from the White House down, all the way through."

Private Lynch (Laura Regan) is shown mostly in flashbacks in her hometown, Palestine, W.Va., where she explains to friends that she cannot find even a part-time job at the local Wal-Mart and is joining the military so that she can someday become a teacher. When her convoy from the Army 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company takes a wrong turn and is fired on by Iraqi fighters, the film does not show her using her weapon. (Early on, The Washington Post reported that Private Lynch shot back at her attackers like Rambo. In the book she says she never fired a shot.)

There are plenty of hokey television moments, as is to be expected during a network sweeps month. But the ambush scene is surprisingly good, particularly the moments just before the Americans come under fire, shoot back and ultimately surrender. The convoy's slow, silent and eerie drive into an Iraqi-controlled section of Nasiriya past stunned enemy soldiers and frightened civilians, and the commanding officer's sweaty seconds of indecision, provide as intimate a glimpse of combat fright as television offers.

It goes without saying that both "Saving Jessica Lynch" and "The Elizabeth Smart Story" are shameless attempts by the networks to capitalize on real-life horror stories. But NBC, which had no access to Private Lynch, made more with less, while CBS made less of more.